Brick-and-mortar stores have one big advantage. When a visitor walks in, salespeople know if the person wants to buy or not. Salespeople are adept at judging such intentions . So, based on their judgment, they approach the visitor with an appropriate pitch to close a sale.

Having an ecommerce, or virtual store, is a total game changer!
Here, you have no salespeople, no face time with the visitor; and, hence, no scope to determine the buying signals!
Don’t sigh just yet. It’s not a lost cause. You can learn a lot about your visitors through their “digital” body language. I’m talking about their digital behavior – browsing, clicking, scrolling, filtering, etc. But, you already know that, right?
What you may not know is that it’s easy to identify a pattern in this behavior and leverage it. There have been 4 sets of online visitors for any ecommerce website:

The Wish Lister, or the “online avatar” of a window shopper

The Hesitant Twins, the Underconfident and the Maximizer

The Passionate Purchaser, our very own Impulsive “Bulk” buyer

The Busy Twins, the most conflicted personas of all – the Rational Visitor and the Satisficer

Carefully go through this infographic from TargetingMantra. Enlighten yourself about the ways in which these visitors differ from each other and how you can decode their behavior to close a sale.
Closing Thoughts
It is important to note that a unique product is sufficient to qualify its visitors, as only those with the intent to buy will arrive. But, what we cannot ignore is that your website is one of many selling similar products. Hence, a human touch is indispensable.
By human touch, we mean the customization of results after studying the psychology and digital body language of the visitor. So, now that you understand your shopper’s persona, gear up with an effective marketing campaign!About the Author: Paras Arora heads Product Marketing at TargetingMantra, a SaaS company that lets ecommerce retailers create a personalized shopping experience for their customers just like Amazon and Zappos. An expert in Personalization and behavioral targeting , Arora has consulted for over 50 clients across the globe on conversion optimization and increasing customer loyalty. He is a serial entrepreneur from IIT-Guwahati and Indian School of Business, who loves to spend his time exploring new technologies. Connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.